Lavalife is old news, and beset with problems. I'm not looking for a GF now, so I'm out of touch with the latest online dating news, but guys I work with have good luck with Plenty of Fish, and perhaps some others that I've never heard of. But Lava was a pain.
Back in the day, I was looking in the Intimate encounters section - casual dates/hookups. It worked sometimes, about on par with Adult Friend Finder, the usual casual dating caveats notwithstanding: It takes a lot of time, and effort. I found that it took about 100 email exchanges to initiate one meet and greet. Then about one viable contact out of every ten actual meet ups.
AFF was free, but I'd encourage a paid membership and absolutely put in some kind of photo, or a guy is just wasting his time.
Lava costs to send/reply to emails. Problem is, the company baits its members with fake spam contacts to their accounts. a 50 year old male, will get innumerable "winks" or "smiles" from 20 year old hot chicks, (several a day) until these account is out of money. Then suddenly these contacts will dry up. I forget what each reply costs a guy - a buck or two - but it adds up if you fall for the "too good to be true" spam sent out by these Lava employees.
If you were looking for a real relationship, on the other hand, dating sites are a good deal, compared to the dating clubs that cost thousands of dollars. As you would expect, the numbers of people online in "Intimate Encounters" on Lava at any given time were about 100 on average. In the "Dating" side about 300, and then 600 to 900 in "Relationships"
The numbers of profiles overall in each section on Lava were commensurate, which is about on par with what you might honestly expect women are actually looking for. Even given that many of the profiles in lava's "Intimate"
section are fake, and just there to draw sucker emails.
I'd avoid Lava in favour of some of the other sites, unless you have lots of time and money, and your bullshit filters are first rate.